Every Chorus was Your Name
by smellslikecorruption
Summary: I can't keep no secrets, I wish that you would always stay.


Why yes, this _is_ 3,000 words of fic for a kid's show. I regret nothing. And if you have me on alert and were expecting BtVS fic, I'm working on one for Seasonal Spuffy.

**Title:** Every Chorus Was Your Name

**Fandom:** Victorious (what even is my life, etc, etc.)

**Characters/Pairing(s):** Jade West/Beck Oliver, brief appearances by some of the others.

**Rating:** R

**Words:** 3,120

**Summary**_**:**__ I can't keep no secrets, I wish that you would always stay._ Three times Jade and Beck say they love each other (and two time they imply it).

Setting: One pre-series, three within a canon timeframe, one future!fic

**Spoilers:** Season 1 references, and spoilers for TWC.

**AN:** Written for the rarewomen fic exchange on LJ. Rated T, but could go higher in some places. I'm really too old to enjoy Victorious as much as I do, and I have really high tolerance for ratings. if you have any problem reading about sex at all, you should turn around.

xxxxx

1

_I remember when we were gambling to win_

…_.._

A month before Jade is supposed to start at Hollywood Arts, she and Beck are stretched out on her roof, side-by-side but not touching, staring up at the sky and watching for shooting stars. Jade just can't get over how _different_ it all feels. She's had boyfriends before, but those relationships were short and casual and she barely ever saw the guy unless they were making out or breaking up and honestly that's the way she preferred her relationships. But with Beck it's, like she just can't get enough. She wants to be near him _all the time. _Talking to him and laughing with him and kissing him. Or just being still with him, like they are now, sharing space and comfortable silence.

And the thing is, it's been months since they started going out, and the giddy feeling she gets from being around him doesn't seem to be going anywhere, which is ridiculous, really, when she thinks about it too long. Except what's really ridiculous is how little time she spends thinking about it. Beck makes her happy, full stop.

She's startled, suddenly, when his pinkie finger bridges the gap between their bodies and hooks over hers. Her skin tingles from the contact and her heart leaps a little in her chest and for second she aches with an emotion she can't name and can barely comprehend.

She tilts her head toward him, only to discover that his eyes are already following her movements, studying her face in the dim light filtering through the window behind them. When Jade meets his gaze, a soft, slow smile spreads across his face and the overwhelming feeling comes slamming back, pushing it's way through her chest and down to her stomach and up through her throat and-

_Oh. _

She takes a shuddery breath and looks away from him, back up to the sky. She's never been good with emotions. Sometimes it feels like every single one she's ever had has gotten stuck somewhere behind her tongue, garbled around until all that come out of her mouth is rabid disinterest. But something about the dark and not having to look at anything but the stars makes her brave. Makes her open her mouth and speak.

"Hey Beck?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

He doesn't say anything.

She's about to start yelling 'gotcha!' or 'April fool's!' But then he swallows nervously and she's frozen.

"Well," he says. She can hear him smiling. "That works out since I love you too."

She squeezes his hand. "Cool."

Jade knows what they must look like, sitting in the dark, grinning like idiots and not looking at each other.

She decides she doesn't care.

xxxxxx

2

_We've got the superhero costumes, know how to change our clothes in a phone booth, so let's pretend that we, we rule the world_

A week after the Diddly-Bop fiasco, Jade was stretched out on Beck's floor, balancing her laptop on her stomach and waiting for Beck to finish his English homework so they could go get pizza, when something caught her eye.

At the top of the SplashFace homepage, there was a video titled "The Diddly-Bop's second (and final) performance."

She shot up. "Babe."

"Yeah?"

"I need to show you something."

Beck tore his eyes away from the notebook he was scribbling in, and turned towards Jade.

He narrowed his eyes. "It's not porn, is it? Because the last time you were grinning that maniacally at something you found online? It was porn."

Jade scoffed. "It was porn parody. And don't even act like you didn't think it was funny. The title was Edward Penishands. It was comedy _gold_. That's not what I need to show you though. Someone got a video of The Diddly-Bops singing at the mall last week!"

"When they got attacked by angry little kids?"

She nodded. "That's the one."

Before she could do so much as blink, Beck was on the floor and reaching over her shoulder to turn on the video.

_What I like, about cheese, is that you can put it on veggies…_

They both shuddered.

Jade squinted at the screen. "Dude. Is that _Sinjin_?"

"Holy crap, it is!"

And that was when debris started flying towards the stage.

Beck pointed to a group of kids in the edge of the frame who were getting to their feet. "Are they about to charge the stage? Because it looks like they're about to charge the stage."

"No way. No w- Oh my God, they're charging the stage!"

"This might be my new favorite video."

Jade nodded emphatically.

On screen, The Diddly-Bops stopped singing and made a run for it. Two children slammed into Trina. She failed to remain upright and the last thing in the clip was a swarm of children scrambling over her hamburger costume.

In the RV, Jade and Beck sat in mirthful silence, blinking at the computer until,

"I still can't believe you got your boobs in that hamburger."

"_I_ still can't believe how shocked Tori looked when she walked in on you trying to help."

He chuckled. "It probably didn't help that all you said when she came in was 'oh, like you've never seen second base.'"

"I stand by that."

Beck jostled her with his elbow. "I just wanted to help. It was a complete bonus that doing that required me to feel you up."

She kept her face as straight as possible. "Beck Oliver, ladies and gentlemen. Proving that chivalry is, in fact, _not_ dead." The effect was ruined somewhat when she burst into laughter as soon as finished speaking.

He caught her hand and kissed it. "Forget never having to say you're sorry. _Real_ love means always helping her get her boobs in the hamburger." He grinned at her. "That should be on, like, a poster or something."

She laughed at him. But before they left for dinner, Jade wrote it on his whiteboard.

xxxx

3

_So if you have a lover, love them violently_

…

They're fighting all the time. Real fights, not the silly little spats that end as quickly as they begin, or the fights that were almost games and always seemed end with the two of them fucking each other raw in semi-public areas.

And even when they aren't fighting, Jade is on high alert. Hackles raised and waiting, listening for even the smallest slight and she's certain that Beck is doing the same thing.

They're quiet when they're alone. Which she thinks might be the problem actually. She and Beck, they've never been great at talking about emotions and now that they need to, she's not sure how to start.

So instead she kisses him. Touches him. Holds his hand. Leans her head on his shoulder in class.

But there's still a rift, filling up with exhaustion and irritation, and Jade can feel it getting wider every day, making it harder and harder to reach each other.

Sex doesn't fix anything, but it feels good and sometimes it makes Jade forget how bad they are at everything else.

She's staring at the wall of the RV one night, naked and waiting for sleep, when it occurs to her just how messed up the two of them have gotten.

Wide-awake, but not speaking. Trying not to brush against each other in his tiny bed, even though he'd been _inside_ her barely ten minutes earlier.

She wants to say something. Some perfect line about how much she wants things to change, and how she can't even remember what they were fighting about in the beginning, and how she knows they love each other and isn't that the most important thing?

She could be a different person and say it on stage or in front of a camera. She could put the words on paper and watch someone else bring them to life.

But she's just Jade and Jade can't find the words.

Instead she reaches for Beck's hand an clings to it. He grips back, just as hard, and it feels like maybe he understands. Like he still loves her too.

They hang on until they fall asleep.

xxxx

4

_I whimper, laugh, and cry. There is a murmur of your love inside_

…

They break up.

Jade tries as hard as she can to avoid him, but their so-called "friends" have clearly started splitting time with both her and Beck and the threat of having to spend another lunch with only Robbie and Tori for company motivates her into burying the hatchet.

So the dust settles into the form of friendship.

The first thing she noticed was that being friends with Beck was _hard_.

They knew each other better than anyone else in the world. Jade knew that that wouldn't always be true- in a year someone else might know her better than Beck will, or know Beck better than she will (and the smarting jealousy she gets at the thought is another thing on the long list of what she's not supposed to feel anymore)- but for now it is, and she has a hundred useless details of him clogging up her brain.

The hardest part, though, was that she had to keep reminding herself that she couldn't touch him. It wasn't an issue while she was still mad and avoiding him at every opportunity. But once they start spending time in the same room and she was actually trying to be _civil_, it was turning into something of an issue. She didn't particularly _want_ to touch him, but three years of near constant contact was a hard habit to break and they used to touch all the time and never give it a second thought. Tangled, overlapping extensions of each other, more often than not. And now that she was paying attention, having only one body seemed like kind of a raw deal.

The second thing she noticed is that she wasn't the only one having problems. Actually, of the two of them, Jade was doing a lot better. Beck kept slipping up and touching her waist, or wearing his half of their matching necklaces, or making off-handed comments about how weird it is that she can almost literally sleep through anything.

The third thing she noticed was that, despite her best efforts, she couldn't stop being in love with him.

Sometimes it made her want to scream. Mostly it made her want to drag him off to the janitors closet and do unspeakable things to him. All in all, he was starting to get really distracting.

So, of course, they got paired up for the end-of-year U.S. History project.

"We're friends, right?" She said after class. "We can handle this."

"Yeah! Shouldn't be a problem." Beck didn't exactly look convinced.

Jade was expecting the awkward hours spent in her kitchen and at the library, trying to figure out how to be alone together. She was even expecting the weird tension that settles over them after a couple of days.

What she was not expecting was Beck knocking on her front door at one in the morning while her parents were out of town.

And she certainly wasn't expecting the first thing he said to be, "I don't want us to be friends anymore!"

She reeled back. "Excuse me? You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me you don't want to be my friend anymore?"

He barged past her and started pacing around in her foyer. "That didn't come out right."

"Oh, you don't say?"

He shot her a look, which she ignored.

"Beck you have about ten seconds to make it come out right or I'm calling the cops and getting you arrested for trespassing."

He stopped pacing. "You opened the door."

She smiled sweetly. "They don't need to know that."

Beck frowned at her, clearly trying to decide if she was serious.

"You were saying something about not wanting to be friends with me?"

He blinked. "Yes! But that's not what I meant!"

"Oh my God. Will you just spit it out so I can go back to bed?"

"I don't want to stop being your friend. I _like_ being your friend. And I just keep thinking that it's better this way, and we get along so much better, and if I keep ignoring that I'm in love with you, eventually I won't be."

He ignored her sharp intake of breath and kept talking. "But we were friends before. Jade, you were my best friend in the entire world and I think when that started slipping, our relationship started slipping. And I don't know how you feel, but I want that back. I want to be your friend _and_ your boyfriend. "

He trailed off, and Jade found herself in a rare moment of speechlessness.

"Oh."

Beck rubbed the back his neck. "Yeah."

"You fell back in love with me?"

"I never fell out."

"Oh." She said again. "Well I didn't either."

A goofy grin spread across his face, and was suddenly done waiting.

"Beck? You should probably come kiss me now."

xxxx

5

_I'm turning into fairytales, with glitter and some glue_

…

The birds chirping incessantly outside the window were the first things to stir Jade out of her dreams. The second thing was the alarm clock.

She groaned and buried her head deeper under the covers and doing her very best to ignore the piercing shriek. Unfortunately, it was harder to ignore the foot jostling against hers, or the sound of Beck's voice, slurred and raspy from sleep.

"Jade. Jade, your alarm clock. Babe, it's _Sunday_. Jaaade."

She kicked back at him and didn't move.

A sigh emanated from his side of the bed, and she felt him moving closer until he was half on top of her, reaching over to fumble the alarm into silence.

In the peaceful moment that followed, Jade cracked her eyelids open, and squinted at Beck through the dim light filtering through their curtains.

"Hi." He whispered.

She smiled and tried to smother a yawn. "Hi. What are you doing awake so early?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Oh no. Don't even try to pretend you were actually asleep."

He flopped down onto his side, facing her, his fingers coming up to trace shapes on the back of her hand.

Jade blinked back at him solemnly. "I could have been. I can sleep through almost anything, you know."

He matched her serious expression. "Oh I know. It's not like we use that clock specifically because it's the only one that wakes you up, or anything."

Jade broke first, grinning and cupping the back of his neck to pull him closer.

"I'm sorry I forgot to turn off the alarm before I went to bed last night," She murmured, "And I appreciate you sacrificing your precious beauty sleep to shut it off this morning."

She closed the gap then, disregarding their collective morning breath, in favor of slow, sleepy kisses.

Beck rolled over, pulling her with him, until he was on his back and Jade was stretched out on his chest. His hands followed the curve of her hips, down to the back of her thighs, and settled on her pale skin.

The feel of his rough fingers on her bare skin, and the comfortable pressure of his lips, and the familiar shape of his body solid beneath hers as they lay tangled in their warm sheets sparked heat deep in her belly and sent a slow burn spiraling through her veins.

She shifted a little, seeking friction, and grinned when she felt him hard against her thigh.

She maneuvered herself into a straddle and rolled her hips forward.

"Hey, since we're awake early anyway…" She arched an eyebrow, trusting him to fill in the rest.

"You're so romantic." Beck teased, reaching to brush her hair out of her face.

She didn't bother to tease back before leaning down to catch his smiling mouth.

His hands moved up her body to catch the hem of the t-shirt she'd worn to bed, pulling it off as she lifted her hips, rotated slightly, and sunk down.

Her breath hitched and she leaned back down, reveling in the sensation of his bare chest rubbing against hers.

"Thank God you sleep naked."

Beck made a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a moan.

The sex was lazy and gentle, neither of them inclined to do much that would require more movement than necessary, but Jade had to admit it was nice to be able to just drift. To let the pressure build and build until they were dancing on the edge.

Beck leaned up to kiss her.

And then she felt his fingers tugging at her hair and his teeth tugging at her lip and an orgasm hit her with all the subtlety of a runaway train. She cried out ground down, working him until he shuddered and fell apart under her fingertips.

Jade dropped her head to his shoulder and caught her breath. When she looked up he was flushed, and smiling the big, idiotic grin he only ever wore around her. Out of nowhere she was overwhelmed by how fiercely she loved him. By how fiercely he loved her.

"Beck?"

"Yeah?"

Words she hadn't said in years were out of her mouth before she even had time to think about it. "Tell me you love me?"

He laughed, clearly startled, and Jade reared back, frowning. But his laugh was infectious, and she was holding back giggles when she asked, "Should I be offended, or…?"

"No!" She could see him struggling to control his mirth before he answered, and for some reason, that made her laugh harder.

"I just- " He continued. "We are still in our house right? We didn't, like, fall through some sort of time portal back to high school while we were having sex, did we?"

She rolled off of him, smirking and declared, "I am _almost_ positive that we did not."

Beck flipped onto his stomach and faced her. "Oh good, because that would have been weird." He exhaled. "Okay. I'm calm. Let's see if I remember. Um… Magic word?"

She snorted. "Hmm… Oh! Thanks to me, you've been getting laid pretty steadily since the ninth grade?"

"That was more than one word."

Jade just rolled her eyes. "You're cute when you're about to get hit in the groin."

He was still chuckling a little, but his eyes were serious, and his voice was soft when he said, "Jade? I love you."

"Well thank God. The whole 'being married for three years' thing " would be kind of uncomfortable otherwise."

"_That_ is very true."

Jade turned and wriggled into his arms. "I love you too, by the way. Just in case you've recently suffered from memory loss and forgot, or something."

"Nah. I could never forget anything about you."

"Wow."

"Too corny?"

"If I wasn't so comfortable right now, I'd probably have to leave you for that."

"Liar. I have it on good authority that you love me."

"Huh. That's lucky."

"Damned lucky."

~End~


End file.
